By Joan Prather, former Executive Director of Stevensville Main Street Association, and Victoria Howell, founding board member of Stevensville Main Street Association
Stevensville, Montana is a town, not a city. It’s one of Montana’s first towns, and in spite of the haphazard commercial growth in our beautiful Bitterroot Valley, Stevensville has managed to maintain its small-town charm and historic and cohesive feel. How was this possible in a county with no zoning?
It’s because the incorporated municipality of Stevensville does have zoning. The folks who came before us had the foresight to develop a plan for how, where, and what kind of growth would occur. Now the Stevensville Planning and Zoning Board has made a decision that could potentially destroy that careful planning with their decision to allow C-2 (commercial) zoning in a residential, and mostly rural, area at the east edge of the town limits.
The proposed Burnt Fork Estates is a huge, ambitious subdivision that will have 220 single- and multi-family units that will be basically separated from the rest of the community. There are concerns about access, about water and sewer impacts, about how the subdivision will connect with the Creekside Meadows subdivision to the north, and many others.
But we’d like to focus on just one aspect, and that is the 16-lot commercial development that is proposed at the corner of Middle Burnt Fork and Logan Roads.
Several years ago, Stevensville did a survey to help decide how commercial growth should happen. The consensus of the citizens polled indicated that they did not want commercial development to spread up Middle Burnt Fork, but rather to spread south on Eastside Hwy. That was before the Twin Creeks Subdivision off Middle Burnt Fork was built, but there is still no commercial development in that part of town. The limited commercial development on Middle Burnt Fork consists of the Pantry Partners Food Bank/Clothes Closet and a school bus parking area, which are both on unzoned county land. These two commercial spots were cited by the developers’ representative as examples of possible uses in C-2 zoning, even though they are in areas where there is no existing zoning. And by the way, if you’ve ever driven on Middle Burnt Fork when the food bank/free store is open, you know that’s a very busy spot, with cars pulling in and out constantly.
Here’s what Stevensville’s current Growth Policy says:
“There are many elements of Stevensville that serve to shape the town’s identity. Stevensville’s connection to Montana’s beginnings, proximity to the natural environment, and the safe small-town feel all contribute to the sense of place that residents cherish and that serves to attract visitors and new residents. Stevensville’s 2016 Growth Policy Update reflects the community’s desire to preserve these unique aspects of the town while envisioning a future of coordinated growth and ongoing success.”
The Growth Policy has a section on Goals, Objectives and Implementation. Thirteen goals are identified. Goal #1 is “Encourage Reuse and Infill in Existing Commercial Areas. Goal #9 is: “Provide for the Continued Success of Downtown Stevensville.” Nowhere in the Growth Policy is there any mention of expanding, improving, or even allowing commercial development on the east edge of town. This was not part of the vision for the Town in the current Growth Policy and this proposal for commercial development at the corner of Middle Burnt Fork and Logan is not in conformance with Stevensville’s Growth Policy.
We’ve been part of the Stevensville business community for the past 35 years, nearly 20 of those as executive director and founding board member of the Stevensville Main Street Association, respectively. For whatever reasons, and not on our watch, the Main Street Association crashed and burned at the end of 2019. It could be argued that it had served its purpose and was no longer needed. After all, the downtown district (which by the way, is NOT just Main Street but also the side streets between Main and Buck and Main and Church as well as the east side of Buck Street and the west side of Church Street) no longer has a problem with empty or dilapidated storefronts; citizens (and tourists) enthusiastically support downtown events and festivals; the message of the importance of shopping locally has been drummed in long enough and thoroughly enough to conceivably make a real impact on consumer habits.
But all this is fragile. The heart of a town of this size can be broken pretty easily, especially now that there is no watchdog group like the Main Street Association paying attention. In fact, there is no one right now to represent the voice of the existing businesses. Except perhaps us.
Some citizens have complained about the meeting process that has occurred so far on this subdivision proposal. We think they have a valid point. Obviously, there are tremendous challenges in holding “public” meetings during the pandemic. We can be pretty certain that this proposal holds significant interest for many citizens of Stevensville, but it was evident from the few public comments made by phone that this comment system does not work well for most folks. Not surprisingly, most of the written comments that did come in were from Creekside Meadows residents, and these were dismissed by at least one board member as being merely NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) comments. That was inappropriate and unresponsive, to say the least, since the best that those significantly affected residents can realistically hope for is to influence the impacts by pressing for mitigation.
But on the issue of commercial development, we’re most concerned that not a single business owner made a comment. We think this indicates that they were unaware of the meeting and/or how to participate.
The job of the Planning & Zoning Board was to thoroughly review this subdivision proposal before passing it along to the town council. But based on their discussion (which consisted of about 12 total hours to go over every single detail of this huge proposal and incorporate their own and the developers’ suggested amendments), the board seemed not to grasp the importance of what they were giving their approval to. This was their only chance to say, hey, let’s take a step back and research the possible consequences of this zoning change. This was not a request for a conditional use, this was a request for a zoning change that, once approved, is permanent.
It was pointed out that the planning board had the ability to take more time because any procedural timeframes for the subdivision process have been suspended due to the pandemic. It was also pointed out by the Ravalli County Planning Director that, as an advisory board, they had the ability to recommend to the council denial of the zoning change but then they could also recommend that the subdivision be approved without the zoning change. However, they didn’t seriously consider that option and instead approved the C-2 zone.
Now we can only hope that the town council will give this incongruous zoning proposal the attention it truly deserves when it considers the board’s recommendation, and that the council will adhere to the vision of the Stevensville Growth Policy. We respectfully ask the town council not to approve this subdivision proposal as it exists today. Send it back to the Planning & Zoning Board for further revision.